During three centuries, the nunnery was a neighbour of the monastery, but, in 910, as the Huns were wasting the country, the nuns, with the help of the Emperor Louis III, constructed a fortified convent in the valley.

To give an idea of the feeling which has always been common in Rome against the Jesuits, it is enough to quote the often told popular legend about the windy Piazza del Gesù, where their principal church stands, adjoining what was once their convent, or monastery, as people say nowadays, though Doctor Johnson admits no distinction between the words, and Dryden called a nunnery by the latter name.

'Tis a very nice point, madam: I really do not well know how to advise: but, to be sure, a nunnery is a choice not to be recommended to a lady of your youth and beauty, unless your inclinations lead you that way; then indeed --